The Last Bitter Greens

At first glance the neighborhood where I work seems like a wasteland in terms of architecture, but as time goes on and I ride the same route again and again, my eyes explore all of the the nooks and crannies. Careful observation over the same route for months now has unearthed remarkable remnants of something mysterious and grand that existed there before these complexes were built. I touch on the clues like milestones as the bus passes through.

Sometimes I think about the history of it. Something happened before they managed to raze the quartier completely, and for reason unknown to me, there are just a few gorgeous houses set back from the road behind tall metal gates, set inexplicably among cheap sandy looking unpainted cast concrete housing complexes. I wonder what this neighborhood might have been like if they'd managed to hold out. What made the community leave? Sometimes I wonder if this part of town was destroyed by bombs or fire during WWII and this is the rebuild. I suppose I could find out.

One of these days I'll pick up my camera on the way out the door in the morning and take it out on the bus and take some photos of what lingers in the nooks and shadows. I love to explore the neighborhood, even if it looks from the outset like there's nothing there. There is a whisper of deep beauty lurking in the shadows, on the edge of it, predominantly Art Nouveau, cool and mysterious, a built-in window box, a gate, a cast iron worked gate of inexplicabe beauty standing out from the nothingness, something in the ruins and miraculously, in the morning, passing by on the bus, I notice the nuances, they tell me that many of these seemingly vacant houses are indeed occupied.

Unfortunately the neighborhoods there aren't equipped anymore for any kind of local commerce. It still exists like limpets on sea rock clinging to some of the main thoroughfares, but not much. I still get out and walk through the neighborhood where I work every day. Walking during my lunch break today, I was at a crosswalk and because I was impatient and didn't want to stop, I turned the corner towards what I thought was just a vacant lot instead of waiting for the light to change. I passed by a building really empty, I could tell, because all of the windows were broken out.

That's when I saw, recessed from the street, a little place that sold vegetables and some well chosen regional products, a really nicely chosen selection of products, I coudn't help but notice. Veggies, cheeses mostly from the Alps, some jams, cakes, fruits and fresh herbs. I picked up some winter greens and parsley to make a salad tonight. A wedge of cheese and some spice bread. I will go back there again. Things were fresh.

Tonights salad was a mix of the chicory above, carrots, shallots, some greener lettuce, feta to counter the bitterness of the winter greens, sliced mushrooms, and a simple vinaigrette made with cider vinegar, lots of black pepper. It hit the spot.

How to ask for Coffee Ground for Italian Coffepots in France

For two years I have been buying my coffee ground to order from the place in the Halle on Place Martiniere and for two years I have avoided the noun "grind" as in which grind would you like, ma'am? I have never been quite sure how to say it and just kind of started with a syllable Mou... and then adding various endings, depending on my mood, or twisting the sentence around to accomodate the words I did know, saying perhaps one day "Ground in the style of Italy, please", or "Fait (with hand movement) Italienne svp" Lazy me. I never checked to see what the proper word (probably would have been easy!) because the moment passes, the message is conveyed easily enough. I always get my coffee, anyway. Last night I really mangled it and she finally came out and corrected me. THANK YOU! She even added that the word could be considered a trap, and it wasn't my fault. I love it when people excuse me for mangling their language.

In learning foreign languages, you grab a unique scenario in your mind that you can't forget. Imagine you're sitting around a fire the morning after a party enjoying particularly delicious ventreche and eggs in the country at Kate Hill's place.


Suddenly, the dog starts going crazy. Imagine that your hostess puts her garden clogged foot down and says - oh, you might want to go out and see this. Imagine actually feeling the vibration and hearing the sound before it comes through, and then witnessing an enormous mutton herd steamroll its way through Kate's backyard, along the tow path by the canal, smashing and killing everything green in its path. Imagine a mutton hoof coming down on a clump of grass and tearing it out of the ground, mud flying, the force of sheer mutton heft ripping it from the ground. The animals stop here and there to tug interesting bits from the garden and then run off to catch up. The sum of these forces leaves a dark muddy trail of mutton prints as a reminder of what just came through.



Mouture Italienne, s'il vous plait.

Split Personalities

Apero cheeses - my favorite kind.

He smiled and his eyes went around the gallery. I'd spent a semester of late night sessions at the ComArt facility manufacturing an installation of 180 identical black boxes, set in an architecturally inspired row around the white cube gallery, an indirect hommage to Donald Judd. I'd hand-pulled the ink across the screen to serigraph every individual copy of the invitation to the opening myself on hand made paper and had written a 23 page treatise to explain the work, but he didn't want to read it or hear it. He looked and simply said - "You have arrived".

We sipped wine, me in my burgundy colored velvet dress, Rodger in his signature jeans and turtleneck. I didn't believe him. Looking back on that time, I sometimes think it was probably the biggest mistake of my life to hold out with the naive idea that life deliver more content before a person can take themselves seriously, and sometimes I think that there was some precocious wisdom at work there.

There is a certain syntax at work as a person pieces their way, one by one, billet by billet, voyage by voyage, into the creation of a body of work that can be called life work. A vocation is found, sometimes early, sometimes late, and it is in that siren's calling that we find our passion. As the pieces fit together for me, vignettes summarize the activities that nurture and sustain me spiritually. At a point in a person's life, any person's life, they can suddenly name it. The choice presents itself and sometimes it is easy to ease it in among the rest.

The kitchen is the most basic studio for creation - I can find the perfect cyclical patterns arising on a life-sized scale, no monumental accomplishments or revolution at play here, and no single edition miniatures labored over by teams of artisans, but stories that slide naturally into our lives and our minds, like playing cards in bicycle spokes, ideas that repeat, make rythems, fill us, recharge us. I can put some mindful effort into practice here, day after day, every side of me.

We are repeating what has been done for thousands of years, everyone to their own degree and within their context. The aesthetic and ritual of nourishment. It is ageless and can be classed in so many subcategories and styles, but when it is all amassed together, it encompasses every single individual human memory.

We all associate food rituals intimately with the experiences that form us, eras that shape our personalities, our memories, memories of our mothers kitchens, and stories of their mother's kitchens. We accumulate it all into our senses. Sometimes we gather it like cotton wool to be spun into threads that will be used to suspend or support other activites or ideas, and sometimes we can take it simply like a wide open spring Saturday that leaves us happy and tired by the heat of the fire. When we can abandon ourselves to the light and the air and then turn our attention to our collective work suspended over the hearth, without ever having the need to suspend our hopes beyond what is right before us - I know we have arrived.

The month of March here in Lyon has been particularly balmy. Loic and I remember the chill of the dark months and we appreciate the sun on our skin and the sun's first products still now pushing from the earth, yet we also appreciate the warmth of the hearth like no other time. Spring begins with putting up and putting out. It is a time when light fills our mornings and evenings again, opening new doors for creation. The new vegetables, in France called légumes primeurs, are on their way. We remember and talk about last spring's salads and the delicate flavors that await us as the bitter greens make their last show at the market, and we rub our hands together in anticipation of what we know is coming.

Fran goes out to dig in her garden, and my little irises begin to pop out of the soil in my window box. What color will they be? I've forgotten what she said, the lady who sold me parsley roots and iris bulbs to push into the window box last autumn. They'll be blooming soon. I'll see then.

We had a taste of something completely different today. It got me really thinking because of it. For that, I thank La Vache qui Rit. My dining companions all seemed get something amusing out of the experience of unpeeling these little babies. These have been around since the 70s and have made a comeback on the French market. Looking at the illustration on the wrapper, what do you think is at play here?

Apericubes hold a strange appeal for many of the French people I know.
I don't understand it.

Today we had lunch at Aude's and she presented us with some Pop Art at apero. My heart still lies with the minimalists, I must say, although we did enjoy a great afternoon.

The Meaning is the Message

I got a letter yesterday. Sometimes you get a card or a letter through the post and it hits you more than any amount of electronically transmitted information or something that comes through cables or tubes can, even if the message starts with the weather and ends with "well, I have to go". Why is that? Communication by way of manual work, articulated directly into individual script, passed from hand to hand, and delivered physically to your post box always means something more. It is more than the message. It seems like a luxury to have a letter written out like these kinds of letters just naturally are. Why is getting a letter from a friend such a wonderful thing?


I think about my weekly phone calls to my mother and I know I could be doing better. There was a time when long distance calls from wintery New York to Nashville were prohibitively expensive, and instead of being an obstacle to communication, it was the golden age of the letter. On my mother's side of the family they preferred to write. My uncle, who was a fiction writer by vocation and trade and lived in Humboldt, used to warm up daily with letters that he would pound out on a typewriter from edge to edge and top to bottom on a cream colored sheet of cotton rag paper to his sister, my mother, before he got started on his manuscripts. He was a person who was capable of the most evocative and believable exaggerations we ever read. It was rare that a day would go by without my mother receiving a letter crowded full of Jesse or a pen written missive centered in perfect English, like prose, on small personalized stationery from her mother 'Cille.


Making soup is definitely like writing a letter. You begin with the rudimentary necessities for it and like filling a piece of stationery with some local news and bit of your own personality, you let the flavors flow from the season into a hand written note. In the best letter writing style, you always try and tie it up somehow. Your signature spice mix always comes into play, as well as homage to themes that float along in the haze around you as you bustle though your day. Your blank sheet of paper is the mixed stock you've prepared at the beginning of the week, sometimes with game in season but mostly with the very basic of parts, a couple of roots that feel right to you, and whatever herbs seem to be plentiful and right. The story that flows from your sharpened pencil or favorite pen is the personality that the soup takes on with what vegetables and meats, sometimes cheeses or even wines that are available to you at the time. The more thoroughly you live, the better your soup will taste.


Loïc has been traveling this week and I have been out eating in the restaurants. The best kind of restaurant is the one where you can get a feel of the handwriting of the cook. On very rare occasions I'll encounter calligraphy or a beautifully worked captivating story, poetry maybe. These are almost never a surprise because people who have found their vocation in this kind of expression rarely go unrecognized. But it is really enough and a great pleasure to get the hand scripted message of a cook in an unexpected place, a message being transmitted, in a dish when I am out on in the neighborhood on a weeknight. Sometimes I want a postcard from a foreign land. Wherever I go, I ask for an honest letter from the cook about what’s the news that day. My only requirement is that it be written by hand. I think getting that letter reminded me and made me happy to have had the chance to explore this week.

Caramelized leeks and scallops are a natural compliment.

Paris Weekend - an Exerpt

Well, the food was fabulous. And so was the shopping. My feet have been replaced by bloody stumps, but that is the fact of life that must be accepted when weekends in Paris are planned. One must think in advance and think sensibly or else they end up like this. But I am a bloody stump type of girl. I live life that way. Voilà.

First, I met some friends and colleagues for Lunch at le Violin d’Ingres, a lovely little place near the Eiffel Tower. Out of curiosity I ordered the “mille-feuille”, which Sophie instantly photographed. She is very good about not letting moments pass by which I find extremely admirable. Phyllis and Sophie both looked smashing and it was really wonderful to be in one place with them both, and with Angela, and the rest of the group.

She recommended the tête de veau, which was melt in your mouth delicious. I have learned through the years that following her advice always reaps rewards. Now we had a little discussion about how to translate things like tête de veau without giving the false impression that they’re going to light up a gothic candelabra and dim the lights and have coffin bearers come out of the kitchen to place in front of you the freakish remainder of a devil worshipping ceremony. It is really not that way at all. Tête de veau is good. And when properly prepared, it can be sublime.

The tête de veau is one of those dishes that was once the food of the people, you know, a cheap cut. It is now a food of the elite and can cost as much or more as the finest aloyau when it comes straight from the butcher, which bothers me a little bit because in my mind, everyone should get a chance at least once in life to enjoy a good home cooked tête de veau the way mamies used to do it at home. The butcher will advise you to simmer it long and slow with a bouquet, and serve it with a sauce gribiche. I do prepare tête de veau at home when my butcher has it, which is not very often but enough that I’ve got a pretty good recipe tested out in my kitchen notebook.


Constant’s dish tastes like it has been done with tender loving care. I agree, it is extraordinarily well prepared in his kitchen, and served very beautifully. Each plate has a sampling of the important parts of the dish. He does it the old fashioned way, no mystery about that but what makes it shine is that he takes the time to do it right, from A to Z. I would not be surprised if he separates it into parts and cooks certain parts of it respectively to perfection, reassembling the elements at plating. When I was served the dish I remembered that I had ordered at Café Constant last June and it was the same, down to the mimosa dressing. They don’t take reservations at the café so you can always give it a shot if you’re in the neighborhood if you haven’t taken the time to reserve. There is care coming out of that kitchen. They have got it down pat.

Aside from the tete, the highlight of the meal for me was the great conversation. I loved just talking about food in general and French, and stuff. When I meet people in person, I want to meet them and talk about what we share in common. I like to listen to people and get a feel for how they express themselves. We talked about common passions at lunch, and the ideas were fluid from the get go, with everyone at the table. It was a very refreshing meal. We closed the restaurant. Sophie had to get back to packing for her long trip in America that’s coming up and I continued my conversation with Phyllis for a little while on the metro before I got off to begin working on getting my feet good and sore.


I left a rather painful trail through the paper shops in the Marais and considered books as well, but in the end decided against it for fear of my back. I loaded a large shopping bag with lots of little things that only Paris boutiques can offer including some lovely clothes and jewelry, and tried to be careful but in the end I was slogging a large mustard colored sack full of what amounted to lots, even though I was careful not to buy too much. It was a very productive visit.

Dinner was extraordinarily good and exactly what I hoped for. I made a plan to meet with David. He suggested ethnic and I felt safe in his care.

We met at about nightfall. After hauling my large mustard colored sack to an art opening and strategically putting it down in a calculated place in the gallery so that it appeared to be a part of the exhibition, we went to dinner. I considered leaving the sack, because as people slinked by in the magnificently lit gallery they all looked at it and backed away from it as if calculating its significance in comparison to the Golden House on display. But I hadn’t walked my feet to stumps for nothing. I was not going to give up my paper products that easily!

I asked David if we could possibly descend by elevator because the little wooden Paris stairwells give me dizzy spells. The elevator was made of glass and only fit two people, much like a futuristic capsule. It was amusing to be riding it down and watching a girl spiraling down around us on the stairs at a similar speed. We’ve been talking about the elevator here in our building, a kleenex box from the 1960s that’s literally about to fall apart, and I simply adore the idea of getting a glass one as a replacement. I am going to suggest it.

It is clear that in many of the cities of France, people get stuck in elevators a lot. We once helped our neighbor from the one in the building where we used to live in on Cours Lafayette. Madame Arthaud who lives in our building was also trapped this summer. David recounted a recent tale of his own entrapment in which he had to wait for the elevator people to come back from lunch to be freed from an old Paris elevator. His only link to the outside world was a telephone that had someone telling him the men would be along to free him after lunch. I can’t decide if a glass elevator would be good in a situation like that.

People pile in the cars and act out all kinds of interesting scenarios in the Paris Metro. Everyone is aware that everyone is a spectator in that context. There is a lot of self expression going on in many ways on the Metro and it is not to be scoffed at for entertainment value. But when I come to Paris, It is the city that I come to see, so I take the bus when I can. I adore riding across the surface of it and soaking in the layout of the streets and learning the places.

We took the bus on a line that David said is one of his favorites (No. 29) to a Japanese place. The Japanese have a really great way of summarizing big things into completely accessible little packages. In fact sometimes their gestures can say much more than any detailed elaboration, in my opinion. The place we went to was all about little plates of things. We got to compose the table and it was delicious, and matched our conversation perfectly.

The waiter or waitress (not sure what the wait staff was) was caring it was clear, and moved fluidly and acted as a buffer but also a driver of the fracas that made up this wonderful place. We ordered just the right amount of food and warm sake. David shared a story in which he goes to Japan and is sequestered like a prisoner by day, forced to train people, but is fed the most amazing food he has ever eaten every night. The way he told it I imagined them pushing him blindfolded into cabs and cars and taking him to one restaurant after the next, leading him to eat without ever being allowed to see anything in Tokyo outside of a dinner plate. It sounded pretty good to me. It was simply a delight to talk to him and to sample all of the little plates between us. He paints a beautiful picture, grand gestures here, small details there.

Playing Hookey

The plan is to swing by the station I pass each day to go to work and instead of passing it climb aboard after a quick look to find a track. Into the center of Paris in the blink of an eye, suddenly in the middle of it, almost like getting on the metro and stepping off. I'll pack light but also pack as much into the weekend as possible. There are things to see and people to meet. Meals are slotted in one after the next with one person and then the other. In between I will look and gather and align myself along the groove swirling round the arrondissments. Gifts and presence, bisous and breakfasts. A lunch date clenched it and I've pulled it out like an accordian. I will take some time for myself on the streets in between, with a special visit to the quartier Chinois planned alone. There are certain things I need. I will go to the Japanese movie theater for a talkie in VO and remember when we were in the little one room place with ancient yellowed wallpaper by the canal.